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Why I Still Dislike Israel

I little more than two years ago I wrote an article for antiwar.com that was entitled “Why I dislike Israel.” The editors were a bit nervous about running it but eventually allowed it to appear after I agreed to some minor deletions. It turned out to be by far the most successful piece I ever did for that website in terms of readership and it attracted 166 comments. My critique was basically that the contrived special relationship with Israel is very bad for the United States on a number of levels. I argued that Washington should treat Israel like any other country, based on actual American national interests. I continue to hold those views, now more than ever as the Israeli government sinks into something approximating madness and drags Washington along with it, and I have often thought that it would be interesting to revisit my discontent with Israel in light of recent developments.There are good historic reasons to dislike Israel. In the so-called Lavon Affair in 1952 the Israelis were prepared to blow up a U.S. Information Center in Alexandria and blame it on the Egyptians. In the 1960s Israelis stole enriched uranium from a lab in Pennsylvania to build atom bombs. They also obtained nuclear triggers through a spying operation run by Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan that included current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.In 1967, the Israelis attacked and nearly sank the American vessel USS Liberty in international waters, killing 34 crewmen. President Lyndon Johnson subsequently blocked an investigation into what had occurred, a cover-up that has persisted to this day. In 1987, Jonathan Pollard, the most damaging spy in the history of the United States, was convicted of carrying out espionage for Israel. He is up for parole next year. And Israel gets away with literally and directly killing individual American citizens in the cases of Rachel Corrie in 2003 and Furkan Dogan of the Mavi Marmara in 2010.I noted two years ago that the few mainstream critics of Israel tend to apologize in advance by explaining that they have a lot of Jewish friends and actually like Israelis before engaging in what is usually a very mild critique. That milquetoast approach has, fortunately, shifted considerably in the past two years largely due to the steady march of Israeli politics to the hard right coupled with the horrific Israeli attacks on Gaza, which together killed more than 3,000 civilians, including many women and children, and featured deliberate bombings of schools and hospitals. Israel’s development into what is transparently a racist apartheid style state has also come at great cost to the United States, which has looked and acted increasingly ridiculous as a result of the contortions necessary to continue to serve as Tel Aviv’s indispensable patron and protector.Unlike two years ago, there are now a lot of mainstream critics of Israel and they are pulling no punches, leaving the phony narrative of Israel as the beleaguered little democracy in a sea of nasty enemies in tatters. Many of the most effective critics are themselves Jewish, having finally decided that enough is enough. I defy anyone to read the first few chapters of Max Blumenthal’s splendidGoliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel and come away with any remaining illusions about Israeli society and politics intact. And then there are John Judis’s bookGenesis: Truman, American Jews and the Origins of the Arab/Israeli Conflict, Peter Beinart’sThe Crisis of Zionism and the Mondoweiss website run by Phil Weiss.Read the entire article

EVIDECE of OVERTHROW by BANKSERS PUPPETS ~ REMOVAL of an AMENDMENT

2014: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In last year’s New Year’s column I contended that the Iranian nuclear issue is undoubtedly the most important question the United States would be facing in the coming year, and – for once – my prediction turned out to be largely correct. The ongoing negotiations, which began in January, were recently extended into 2015 – and the repercussions have impacted US foreign policy in a major way.Our relations with Israel, our best frenemy, have deteriorated to the point where the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers to deal with the US Congress rather than the executive branch. The Jewish state, for its part, continues to teeter into full-blown extremism – threatening to take military action against Iran, and actively subverting negotiations with the Palestinians, which are at a standstill.Meanwhile, in spite of Israeli sabotage, the talks between Tehran and the West continue – and war has so far been averted. That’s the best thing that has happened in ages – and we should all be grateful we’ve been spared the horrors of what would amount to World War III.Another positive factor on the diplomatic front has been the opening to Cuba, undertaken by the Obama administration with uncharacteristic boldness. Protests by such throwbacks as Sen. Marco Rubio and the usual neocon suspects have only underscored their posturing unreasonableness: polls show the majority of Americans support the move. Chalk up another victory for non-interventionism and the subversive idea that trade and free travel between nations is the best remedy for dealing with the infections brought on by totalitarian sclerosis.The debate over the 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden, which threw back the curtain on the National Security Agency’s worldwide spying operation, reached a fever pitch in 2014, with political implications that have yet to fully play out. The Obama administration’s intellectual Praetorian Guard went all-out in an attempt to trivialize and justify the Surveillance State, denigrating and smearing both Snowden and the journalists who brought this story to the American people. What struck me is that the Regime’s most enthusiastic defenders were, for the most part, self-identified "progressives," such as Prof. Sean Wilentz (a prominent friend of Hillary Clinton), George "I was for the Iraq war before I was against it" Packer, and Cass Sunstein, former Obama administration official and advocate of a sinister plan to "infiltrate" the Internet with pro-government agents.Read the entire article

Did Saudi Arabia and U.S. Crash Oil to COLLAPSE Russia's Economy?

Soldiers Against War The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce

The Christmas Truce, which occurred primarily between the British and German soldiers along the Western Front in December 1914, is an event the official histories of the “Great War” leave out, and the Orwellian historians hide from the public. Stanley Weintraub has broken through this barrier of silence and written a moving account of this significant event by compiling letters sent home from the front, as well as diaries of the soldiers involved. His book is entitled Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce. The book contains many pictures of the actual events showing the opposing forces mixing and celebrating together that first Christmas of the war. This remarkable story begins to unfold, according to Weintraub, on the morning of December 19, 1914:“Lieutenant Geoffrey Heinekey, new to the 2nd Queen’s Westminster Rifles, wrote to his mother, ‘A most extraordinary thing happened. . . Some Germans came out and held up their hands and began to take in some of their wounded and so we ourselves immediately got out of our trenches and began bringing in our wounded also. The Germans then beckoned to us and a lot of us went over and talked to them and they helped us to bury our dead. This lasted the whole morning and I talked to several of them and I must say they seemed extraordinarily fine men . . . . It seemed too ironical for words. There, the night before we had been having a terrific battle and the morning after, there we were smoking their cigarettes and they smoking ours.” (p. 5)Weintraub reports that the French and Belgians reacted differently to the war and with more emotion than the British in the beginning. The war was occurring on their land and “The French had lived in an atmosphere of revanche since 1870, when Alsace and Lorraine were seized by the Prussians” in a war declared by the French. (p. 4). The British and German soldiers, however, saw little meaning in the war as to them, and, after all, the British King and the German Kaiser were both grandsons of Queen Victoria. Why should the Germans and British be at war, or hating each other, because a royal couple from Austria were killed by an assassin while they were visiting in Bosnia? However, since August when the war started, hundreds of thousands of soldiers had been killed, wounded or missing by December 1914 (p. xvi).It is estimated that over eighty thousand young Germans had gone to England before the war to be employed in such jobs as waiters, cooks, and cab drivers and many spoke English very well. It appears that the Germans were the instigators of this move towards a truce. So much interchange had occurred across the lines by the time that Christmas Eve approached that Brigadier General G.T. Forrestier-Walker issued a directive forbidding fraternization:“For it discourages initiative in commanders, and destroys offensive spirit in all ranks . . . . Friendly intercourse with the enemy, unofficial armistices and exchange of tobacco and other comforts, however tempting and occasionally amusing they may be, are absolutely prohibited.” (p. 6–7).Source

The Truth About Russia And NATO

Abolishing the CIA

The shock resonating from the Senate Intelligence Committee’s CIA torture report isn’t due so much to the revelations themselves, grotesque as the details are, but to the fact that they’re now officially public. National spokespersons (except for Dick Cheney) can no longer deny, quite so glibly, that the United States is what it claims its enemies to be.

We’re responsible for the worst sort of abuses of our fellow human beings: A half-naked man freezes to death. A detainee is chained to the wall in a standing position for 17 days. The stories have no saving grace, not even “good intelligence.”

The Axis of Evil smiles, yawns: It’s home.

The question is, what do we do with this moment of national self-awareness? Beyond demanding the prosecution of high-level perps, how about really changing the game? I suggest reviving S. 126, a bill introduced into the U.S. Senate on Jan. 4, 1995 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, titled: Abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Abolish the agency that has secretly stirred up hell on earth. Its sins go far beyond torturing suspected terrorists. This agency, with its annual budget (in 2013) of nearly $15 billion, has covertly carried out the bidding of special economic and political interests since its founding, orchestrating, among much else, the overthrow of democratically elected, populist governments in Iran, Guatemala and Chile because the U.S. couldn’t control them. In each case, the regime that followed was darkly repressive, murderous; the blood of their victims is also on American hands.

The abolition of the CIA could be a conscious step in tearing our government out of the grip of the war consensus — this unelected force that feeds on perpetual global mistrust and hatred, the exact opposite of what true security requires.

In Moynihan’s speech introducing the bill to the Senate, he declared that the end of the Cold War “was a victory achieved by openness, not secrecy. By frankness, not intrigue.

CAP AND TRADE: NEWSPAPER SAYS YOU SHOULD LOVE YOUR SERVITUDE.

Obama Throws Fidel a Rope

The celebrations in Havana and the sullen silence in Miami tell you all you need to know about who won this round with Castro’s Cuba.In JFK’s metaphor, Obama traded a horse for a rabbit.We got back Alan Gross before his Communist jailers killed him, along with an American spy, in exchange for three members of a Cuban espionage ring. Had we left it at that, the deal would have been fine.But Obama threw in an admission that all nine presidents before him pursued a “failed policy.” Calling for recognition of the Castro regime as the legitimate government of Cuba, Obama said, “Isolation has not worked.”“Not worked”? What is he talking about? Isolating Cuba during the last 30 years of the Cold War helped bankrupt and bring down the Soviet Empire, which had to carry Cuba on its back.Obama’s admission is being seen in Cuba as vindication of half a century of hostility to the United States. But with the new Congress controlled by Republicans, it will be a while before the U.S. embargo is lifted, Cuban goods began to flow across the Florida Strait, and U.S. dollars flow back to sustain one of the last of the Leninist regimes in its terminal stage.But why did Obama choose now to bail out Cuba?Read the entire article

SPLC Race Baiting Operations Exposed

Promoting the Apocalypse

If you read a major newspaper on a regular basis you will no doubt have seen the full page ads placed by defense contractors. The ads generally are anodyne, featuring ubiquitous flags and eagles while praising America’s soldiers and war fighting capabilities, sometimes to include a description of a new weapon or weapons system. That a company whose very existence depends on government contracts would feel sufficiently emboldened to turn around and spend substantial sums that themselves derive from the American taxpayer to promote its wares in an attempt to obtain still more of a hopefully increasing defense pie smacks of insensitivity to say the least. I for one find the ads highly offensive, an insult to the taxpayer.Some might argue that that is how capitalism works and there is no better system to replace it but such an assertion ignores the fact that competition among defense contractors, though fierce at times, is largely a fiction as all the major companies are on the receiving end of huge multi-year government contracts with built in cost overruns and guaranteed production lines. They also operate a revolving door whereby former senior officers and Pentagon officials like Rumsfeld and Cheney move out to the private sector, get rich, and then return to government in policy making positions. It is more like the worst form of crony capitalism than Adam Smith. Most large companies have decentralized their production facilities so that they have a workforce presence in as many states and congressional districts as possible, making it unlikely that they will ever be lacking contracts.President and former General Dwight D. Eisenhower called it all a military-industrial complex and warned that “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”He reportedly wanted to call it a military-industrial-congressional complex but demurred on including the nation’s legislature as he wanted it to get on board in bucking the trend towards creating a permanent warfare state. In that he was unsuccessful.Today Eisenhower might well want to add “think tank” to his description of the problem. Insidious, and largely hidden from public sight, is the funding of institutes and foundations that promote a pro-war agenda which benefits both the organizations in question and the contractors who seek to promote what is euphemistically referred to as a pro-defense agenda. As Lockheed cannot directly call for more war without raising obvious concerns it instead uses its allies in various foundations and institutes to contrive the intellectual justifications that lead to the same conclusion. These self-described experts are in turn picked up by the media and their messages are fed to a larger audience, creating unassailable groupthink on national security policy.Read the entire article

CIA Torture Report Sparks Bush Arrest Plea

The Role of 9/11 in Justifying Torture and War: The Criminalization of the US State Apparatus. Senate Report on CIA Torture is a Whitewash

The words “possible criminal actions” by CIA employees are used in the report.The terms unethical and immoral are mentioned. The criminality of those who ordered these actions at the highest levels of government, however, is not acknowledged.The actions directed against alleged jihadists are categorized as ineffective in the process of revealing intelligence. This in itself is a red herring. The objective of torture was not to reveal intelligence. What of course is not acknowledged is that the alleged terrorists who were tortured were framed by the CIA. Known and documented the Al Qaeda network is a creation of US intelligence.The jihadists are “intelligence assets”.Torture serves to perpetuate the legend that the evil terrorists are real and that the lives of Americans are threatened.Torture is presented as “collateral damage.” Torture is an integral part of war propaganda which consists in demonizing the alleged terrorists.And the Senate committee report ultimately upholds the legitimacy of the US intelligence apparatus, the US government, its military and intelligence agenda and its “humanitarian wars” waged in different parts of the World.Read the entire article

The Obama administration has also been stalled on trade on the homefront as Congress has refused to give the administration fast track trade promotion authority. Fast track would allow the President to sign the agreement before it went to Congress and would restrict Congress’ power to review it. It would ensure Congress plays virtually no role in regulating trade as is its constitutional mandate under the Commerce Clause.

On Sunday night Popular Resistance began the week of negotiations with a Light Brigade putting messages on the US Trade Representative’s office in Washington, DC.

On Monday morning members of Popular Resistance held a ‘Sit-in to End the Secrecy’ on the front steps of the USTR office . As Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiators and USTR staff arrived for their first day of meetings this week, demonstrators demanded that they stop hiding the text of the trade agreement and instead make it available to the public telling them “secret negotiations are anti-democratic.”

Ten Quick Facts You Should Know About The Police State

1. More than 500 American citizens have died after being tased, a device considered “non-lethal.”

2. The yearly cost of the War on Drugs to the American taxpayer is about $40 billion. The estimated cost to end hunger worldwide is $30 billion yearly.

3. There are more than 80,000 military raids conducted by police every year in the United States.

4. There are roughly 2.3 million people locked up in the United States with another 5 million on probation or parole. The overwhelming majority are for non-violent crimes.

5. UNICOR, an establishment inside the US Federal Prison System uses its confined pool of labor to produce war goods for the US military.6. In 36% of US SWAT raids, no contraband of any kind is found after the officers risk everyone’s life and engage in reckless actions that cost lives.

7. An average London resident is recorded over 300 times a day by Big Brother’s video surveillance apparatus.

8. The only nation to maintain a higher incarceration rate than the United States is Germany … under the Nazis.

2014 NDAA BILL HAS MASSIVE AGENDA 21 LAND GRAB EARMARKS

America is on a “Hot War Footing”: House Legislation Paves the Way for War with Russia?

America is on a war footing. While, a World War Three Scenario has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for more than ten years, military action against Russia is now contemplated at an “operational level”. Similarly, both the Senate and the House have introduced enabling legislation which provides legitimacy to the conduct of a war against Russia.We are not dealing with a “Cold War”. None of the safeguards of the Cold War era prevail. There has been a breakdown in East-West diplomacy coupled with extensive war propaganda. In turn the United Nations has turned a blind eye to extensive war crimes committed by the Western military alliance. The adoption of a major piece of legislation by the US House of Representatives on December 4th (H. Res. 758) would provide (pending a vote in the Senate) a de facto green light to the US president and commander in chief to initiate –without congressional approval– a process of military confrontation with Russia. Global security is at stake. This historic vote –which potentially could affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people Worldwide– has received virtually no media coverage. A total media blackout prevails. The World is at a dangerous crossroads. Moscow has responded to US-NATO threats. Its borders are threatened. On December 3, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation announced the inauguration of a new military-political entity which would take over in the case of war.

Russia is launching a new national defense facility, which is meant to monitor threats to national security in peacetime, but would take control of the entire country in case of war. (RT, December 3, 2014)

The Truth About Revolution in the United States

Who Wants To Be Defense Secretary?

It seems nobody wants to be Secretary of Defense in the Obama administration. The president’s first two Defense Secretaries, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, both complained bitterly this month about their time in the administration. The president’s National Security Council staff micro-managed the Pentagon, they said at a forum last week.Former Secretary Gates revealed that while he was running the Defense Department, the White House established a line of communication to the Joint Special Operations Command to discuss matters of strategy and tactics, cutting the Defense Secretary out of the loop. His successor at the Pentagon, Leon Panetta, made similar complaints.Last week President Obama’s third Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, was forced out of office after complaining in October that the administration had no coherent policy toward Syria. He did have a point: while claiming recent US bombing in Syria is designed to degrade and destroy ISIS, many in the administration continue pushing for “regime change” against Syrian president Assad – who is also fighting ISIS. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, has spoken out in favor of further US escalation in Syria and Iraq despite President Obama’s promise of “no combat troops” back to the region.Shortly after Chuck Hagel’s ouster, the media reported that the president favored Michelle Flournoy to replace him. She would have been the first female defense secretary, but more tellingly she would come to the position from a think tank almost entirely funded by the military industrial complex. The Center for a New American Security, which she founded in 2007, is the flagship of the neocon wing of the Democratic Party. The Center has argued against US troops ever leaving Iraq and has endorsed the Bush administration’s doctrine of preventative warfare. The Center is perhaps best known for pushing the failed counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine in Iraq and Afghanistan. The COIN doctrine was said at the time to have been the key to the US victory in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now that the US is back in Iraq and will continue combat operations in Afghanistan next year, you don’t hear too much about COIN and victories.Flournoy turned down Obama before she was even asked, however. She is said to be waiting for a Hillary Clinton presidency, where her militarism may be even more appreciated. With the next Senate to be led by neocons like John McCain, a Hillary Clinton presidency would find little resistance to a more militaristic foreign policy.Read the entire article